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The Star-Spangled Banner Star-Spangled Banner May 2nd, 2008 by millhouse Edit | Get your copy of ?The Star-Spangled Banner? as performed by Buzz Carlton.
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I can remember a time when the word "Alsace" only brought to mind dim memories of my 5th grade class discussion on some valley that people were fighting about in one of those big wars. In those days I definitely couldn't spell Gewurztraminer, and I had only tried one or two of them.
Perhaps you'd call me a late bloomer when it came to Alsatian wine, but bloom I eventually did, and now I'm a quiet, but fierce devotee of what I believe to be some of the most individualistic wines on the planet. Alsace has always been an odd duck of a winegrowing region. It is the only region in France that not only allows, but mandates that the name of the grape variety appear on the label (though there are exceptions). It happens to grow grapes more associated with Germany and Northern Italy than with the rest of France (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris), and perhaps by virtue of its occasionally Germanic past, produces more beer than any other winegrowing region in the country.
Characterized by steep hillside vineyards whose sun exposure, coupled with the region's cooler climate make for long slow grape maturation, Alsace has been worked by small village winemakers for centuries (major regional wars notwithstanding). There are thousands of producers in the region, though according to the Oxford Companion to Wine, about 175 of those producers make up nearly 80 percent of the regions production. Many of those 175 are still relatively small by French standards, but some, due to their tenure as well as success have grown to be significant producers that make enough wine for export all over the globe.
Trimbach (or more properly, Maison Trimbach) is perhaps one of the best known of these larger producers, and for good reason. The Trimbach family has been making wine under their name since progenitor Jean Trimbach founded the house label in 1636. Twelve generations later, the estate is still run by the family, and is synonymous with the region, producing what some consider to be the finest wines around.
For the first two hundred or so years, Trimbach wines were made, like many in the region, in relative obscurity. Produced and consumed all within a 25 mile radius, the wines were part of the fabric of village life. Around the turn of the 20th Century, however, the then proprietor Frederic Emile Trimbach submitted the family's wines to be shown at the 1897 Brussels Exposition, where they were apparently greeted with significant acclaim.
Now, nearly 120 years after that initial success, Trimbach is known for producing two of the region's finest wines -- both Rieslings. One is bottled under the name Clos St. Hune, and comes from the Grand Cru Rosacker vineyard, and is widely regarded as the region's best Riesling. The other is this wine, named after the enterprising Frederic Emile, whose marketing skills launched more than a century of prominence for his family winery. In addition to these top wines, Trimbach makes 13 other wines, in quantities ranging from a couple thousand cases to the tens of thousands.
Cuvee Frederic Emile is made mostly from grapes grown on a south-southeast facing hillside vineyard named Osterberg above the winery. The limestone rich soil of this Grand Cru vineyard drains quickly and deep, and the grapevines are, on average, 30 years old. The grapes are picked with painstaking deliberation into small shoulder baskets over a series of days, with the goal of selecting only fully ripe clusters of grapes. These clusters are destemmed and assiduously sorted, again to ensure only the choicest grapes are crushed and fermented, ever so slowly, with native yeasts.
I'm not sure about the total production of this wine. The Clos St. Hune is less than 600 cases, but I suspect Cuvee Frederic Emile is made in slightly larger quantities. Were it more plentiful, however, it might be more common to find beautiful aged bottles like this one that some good friends shared with me last month. Trimbach's wines, especially their top cuvees, seem to age forever, and as they do, their personalities begin to truly shine.
Every time I enjoy Rieslings from the Old World like this one, I realize that I don't drink enough Riesling. Every time I enjoy such a beautiful Alsatian wine, I am reminded that I definitely don't drink enough of Alsace.
Tasting Notes: Pale gold in the glass, this wine has a shockingly bright nose of quince and honey that begs to be inhaled slowly, as if that were physically possible. On the tongue it is halogen bright, with gorgeous acidity that brings to life a swath of flavors ranging from fresh lemon juice and honey to paraffin and nut skin. The wine lasts forever in the mouth, lingering through its drawn out finish on vapors of pomelo and orange zest. A fantastic, distinctive wine.
Food Pairing: Whatever you eat with this wine, make sure it's damn good. I drank this on my birthday last month and enjoyed it with many things, but especially with a light cooked shellfish salad of crab, squid, octopus, and clams in an "ocean vinaigrette" with seasoned sesame.
Overall Score: between 9.5 and 10
How Much?: roughly $110 - $190 these days. Current releases (2003) go for $35.
I like writing about imports but it always frustrates me how limited they are (in terms of availability) and generally how expensive. As a reviewer it can feel like I’m spending a lot of time writing for a very, very small number of people. When a box of affordable imports from Australian retailer Vintage Cellars came in though I jumped at it; this is more like it. Vintage Cellars has put a lot of time and energy into its quaffable import range in recent years and it shows. These wines are generally good, available and not expensive. Tasting through them was like a quick trip around the world. There are a couple of real bargains here.
Eric Asimov has a great piece in today’s Times about all the sensory inputs of wine–and he’s not talking about blackberries, leather, and tar but rather what makes us buy and ultimately enjoy a given wine.
The piece summarizes recent research into wine purchasing decisions, particularly two studies that have made consumers appear to be easily influenced by price. Obviously many other factors go into what makes you buy a wine including what you’ve read about it, the place of origin, the grape, the producer, the importer, and perhaps the bottle design and label (if you’re new to this site, have your say in our worst wine label contest while submissions are still open!).
I’m a huge fan of context for wine enjoyment and thanks to Eric for quoting me in the story with this perspective. Sometimes context can even elevate a humble bottle of wine to make it an all-time favorite. I remember Frank Prial, previously wine critic for the Times, saying that the best bottle of wine he ever had was some crappy wine he drank enthusiastically right after returning from a tour in the Korean War. It wasn’t the wine so much as it was the fact that he was home.
It’s amazing how often learned wine folk cite humble bottles as their faves when the experience was really so much about the mood and the moment. How has context influenced a great wine experience of yours?
Maybe there should be 100 point moments rather than 100 point wines. There’s no price tag on that, after all.
Firstly I'm having further problems with my blog which go back to the previous problems I had. Up until this morning everything was working, then Typepad went down and when Typepad came back up my blog decided to be silly. So you may have problems assessing a page and you will have a problem leaving a comment. If you remove the words "my weblog/" from the browser bar comments will work.
I hope to sort it out soon. It couldn't have happened at a worse time.
We have one two more participant to A Taste Of Yellow.....and that brings us to 180 181. From Chuck in San Francisco at Sunday Nite Dinner the 180th entry is Spicy Corn Salad. ...and one I missed, number 181.... Chicken Biriyani from Ranji at Ranji's Kitchen Corner. Biriyani is a mixture of spices, meat/vegetable and yogurt and the word comes from the Persian word "berya" which means fried or roasted.
by Martin Field Cascade Green ? up to $18 the six-pack of 330ml bottles * According to the label, this full-strength (4.5%) lager is 100 per cent carbon neutral, preservative free and low carbohydrate. It has pleasant hoppy spicy aromatics. The palate is medium-weighted and very smooth in texture. Flavours are malty sweet and the finish without bitterness. Banrock Station Ecomate Colombard Chardonnay 2007 - 1 Litre Tetra Pak ? up to $10 * * Light lemony nose. Fresh easy drinking style with faint oak, off-dry finish and mild acidity.
Pouilly Fuisse should not really be mixed up with Pouilly Fume although it happens. While both are white wines Pouilly Fuisse is rightfully Chardonnay and Burgundian. The other Pouilly is from the Loire Valley and is made from Sauvignon Blanc ( to be covered someday!). While Pouilly-Fuisse is an appelation on to itself it would be a shame not to give the individual terroirs recognition also. There are 4 villages in the appelation: Vergisson, Solutre-Pouilly, Fuisse and Chaintre and arguably 5 terroirs as Solutre and Pouilly are distinctive.
From a distance the twin rocks of Vergisson and Solutre are a clear giveaway that you have arrived. The certain soil zones around these rocks are limestone and give the wines that mineral taste which is lacking or more subdued in the other communes outside of Vergisson, Solutre and Pouilly.
The 5 terroirs within Pouilly-Fuisse are :
Vergisson - mineral driven, punchy with acidic backbone. Solutre - mineral driven but softer with pronounced acidity. Pouilly - Good harmony of mineral and fruit - most balanced. Fuisse - More fruity, does not have the minerality of previous 3. Chaintre - Fruit dominant.
The next time you try a Pouilly-Fuisse take a closer look at the label and see where it comes from - there should be a difference. Personally my favorite is Pouilly proper. It seems to have the right balance of fruit, minerality and lively acidity. The other all have their unique characteristics but not in the harmonious balance I get in a benchmark Pouilly.
Not a comprehensive list by any measure but the wines I liked were made by:
By Benjamin Wallace 'In vino veritas?' Ptui. Fakery born of greed has infested the wine trade pretty much since the first grapes were fermented. via The Indianapolis Star
Marking the first anniversary of the 24 hour drinking licence laws, a 'rescue remedy' called Dink has been released.
It is supposed to mitigate the ill-effects of binge-drinking with ingredients that mop up free radicals produced by the liver when it is processing alcohol. It is also cheap and readily available.
It is being marketed to "people who like to get merry". Presumably because they feel it is unwise to market it to people who like to get smashed out of their skulls every Friday night and throw up partially digested burgers on street corners. I think we know who it is actually aimed at.
I must admit that my first thought was "great idea", sounds so useful. But while I'm no Catholic I do think the pain of hang-overs is justly deserved and should reflect any excess. The sparkle generated by a few drinks with friends too easily degenerates into boorishness and incapacity beyond a certain point. There are very few elegant drunks.
And aren't we supposed to be cutting down binge drinking, as a society? We need a cultural shift that comes collectively - social evolution if you like, of the kind we've seen with smoking, drink driving and wearing seat belts.
Most Friday-nighters, though by no means all, are young people with their whole lives ahead of them and of course there is a natural protective urge to want them to stay healthy. The price that many of them pay for their excesses can be heart-breaking. Blaming them as being responsible for their own actions is ridiculous if the message they absorb is that getting really drunk and doing stupid things is clever and/or funny.
And now we are giving them the tools to avoid hangovers. I like drinking and sometimes I drink more than I should, but I also know that my body hates it when I do. It's a natural defense mechanism to show us our limits and should not be overlooked as a preventative.
If we no longer have any medical consequences we will push our bodies over the limit as a matter of course. But often the real trauma of binge drinking is the wider physical and emotional damage caused by violence, bravado, promiscuity or recklessness . Can we develop a pill for that too?
For some people, the storage and acquisition of wine is more than just a hobby, it is an art.
Wine connoisseurs all know that the proper storage of wine is important to its final flavor. Once it is already bottled, wine will still mature and gain body and flavor. Proper care should be taken when handling wine, or else its potential for greatness will go to waste. To keep their wine well preserved, the discriminating connoisseur will choose a proper wine rack.
How to Buy a Wine Rack
The Build Wine racks can be made of so many different materials and styles. You should consider which material and style fits your need and preference. You could have wood, glass, alloy, or metal racks. Some people try to choose materials that match their living rooms. There are a variety of styles of wine racks, find one that if convenient for you. The popular styles include counter top racks, diamond bins, cabinets and others.
The Essential Elements A good wine rack will ensure that the following elements are strictly controlled. Light, humidity, temperature, stability. If you want to keep your wine well preserved and ready for ambush party, you need to make sure they are not exposed to light, moisture, extreme temperatures and shaking or vibration.
Cabinet wine racks are good at keeping wine bottles safe. They can emulate the conditions at a wine cellar best. These condition include moderate humidity, cool temperatures, and little light
We try to control the humidity so we can avoid getting the wine cork from accumulating moisture. This will lessen the chances that the wine will get contaminated or oxidized. Keeping the correct humidity or appropriately moist environment will keep the wine cork damp, reducing the chances of contamination and/or oxidization. Warm conditions will accelerate wine aging. You have to keep this in mind when you consider which wine rack to choose.
Things to Remember Don’t place wine cellars above or near refrigerators. Refrigerators generate heat and this heat could ruin you wine collection. Buying and installing a good wine rack would be useless if that happened.
Your rack has to be smooth enough that when the wine bottles are put and taken, they will not get scratched and damaged. Bottles and labels are also important parts of the overall value of wine.
A wine cellar is great but not necessary to store your wine in the correct environment. But since not everyone can afford a wine cellar or has space enough for one, you could opt for a wine rack instead. Wine racks function a lot like wine cellars, but they are smaller and are more accessible. They are also a lot cheaper and easier to install.
Believe it or not, ultraviolet light can affect and ruin wine. That’s the reason wine cellars are so dark and that’s why you have to keep your wine in a dark safe place. When you store your wine bottles, make sure they are stored sideways; this ensures that the wine is always in contact with the cork to keep it moist.
Once again we cannot express how important it is to maintain the right conditions for your wine to mature nicely. Your wine rack system has to maintain the right amount of humidity and temperature to keep your collection going. Bear in mind that wine is something you keep for a long time. Keep your wine racks pumping a temperature range of 55-60° F. Also make sure the humidity is in the 50% to 75% range. Adjust these settings according to the needs of your wine.
Start Planning for Your Wine Rack Now! Well, now you have pretty much gotten everything in order. When a party comes crashing through, you can whip out the grade A wine and celebrate to your hearts content. Pour out the good times to the tune of the compliments and admiration your friends will throw your way all because of your fine wine rack.
About the author: For more great wine rack info and advice check out: http://www.rack-hq.com
I wrote this post in advance, knowing that I'd probably have to throw it up here at the last minute and sprint. Things might be a little erratic around here for the next couple of weeks, thanks to a new addition to the Vinography family.
See what happens when you drink wine? Let this be a lesson to you. A few good nights with a few good bottles, and nine months later? Pop. Just like a cork.
So we're off to the hospital with a bottle of Krug, and you probably won't see a post here for a few days while we get to know our daughter, Sparrow Lieu. I know it will be tough, but you'll just have to hang in there without your daily dose. Perhaps you can wait in anticipation that my tasting notes will go off the deep end as I'm making them in a state of complete sleep deprivation when I resurface. Lord knows I'll need a good glass of wine.
It's a pretty sweet idea, and I never turn down dessert, so here goes:
1. Carne cruda. Preferably Piedmontese beef. Preferably eaten in Barolo. Preferably with shaved truffles on top. But what is it? Literally, it's finely chopped raw beef dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Principally, it's heaven.
2. Portillo's all-beef hot dog with everything (mustard, relish, onions, sliced tomato, kosher pickle and celery salt on a poppy seed bun). Mmmm. Sweet home, Chicago.
3. Rabbit rillette from Bouchon in Napa. Rillette is meat that's slow-cooked in fat until it's creamy and rich. It's served cold, often from a ramekin, and Bouchon pairs it with crostini and fig paste.
4. My husband's butternut-squash bisque. He gives the recipe out freely because he knows once someone takes a look at the list of ingredients, they'll never try it on their own. It's smooth and satisfying. A few crumbles of blue cheese on top cut the sweetness. My ultimate comfort food.
5. Kifli, the triangle-shaped cookies my mom makes about once every five years at Christmas if I beg. They're labor intensive, so I don't blame her for being so stingy, but the flaky crispness and almond-paste inside say holidays to me.
The GrapeRadio Bunch decided to have a bit of fun with this show. So, while kicking around some ideas, we wondered…Do you hide wine from your spouse or significant other? Of course not; who would do that? Well, maybe we would!
Join us as Brian, Eric and Jay “come clean” about how they would “disguise” a wine purchase here and there, so as not to bring unwanted attention to their wine-buying habits.
If you comment on this show and share your crazy wine hiding antics you will be automatically entered in our drawing. We are giving away 4 autographed copies of George Tabers book “To Cork or Not to Cork”.
Prince Edward County (PEC), the most-talked about new wine region in Ontario, may be scoffed at as being too intemperate for vines to survive there, but wineries like Norm Hardie, the Grange, Rosehall Run and Long Dog are changing the...
This $10 sparkling wine from Vouvray France is really very nice! Made from Chenin Blanc, it is pale straw in color with a lemony melon bouquet that is understated. It is somewhat thin on flavor but is crisply made and refreshing.
Somewhat non-descript but I tell you this is a "best buy" sparkler and worth seeking out! I'll buy more if given the chance. Raise a glass!
Food has been in the news quite a bit recently. Rising prices of corn and rice have sparked unrest in countries in which they are staple foods, and residents of the United States are having to deal with shortages of certain commodities, such as rye. The reduced salmon population in California, Oregon and Washington is expected to push the prices of wild Alaskan salmon to as much as $40 per pound (we'll find out just exactly how much when Copper River salmon gets to our area later this week or next). And the political support for ethanol subsidies is slipping as corn prices rise.
News stories about dollar-stretching and belt-tightening abound, so it was a bit of an eye opener to read a story in The New York Times that says Americans throw away 27 percent of their available food, or about a pound a day per person. This isn't a purely American phenomenon: Brits throw away a third of their food, and Swedes up to a quarter.
And while 30 million tons of food is deposited annually into U.S. landfills, Second Harvest reports that contributions to food banks has declined by nine percent. It's a complex problem (complicated, as many things are, by the specter of liability lawsuits); follow the link and read the whole thing.
In the meantime, remember what your mother said: Eat everything on your plate; and waste not, want not.
It?s been a very busy week, but after my nice catching up session with Google Reader, here are some treasures worth noting from the RSS pileup:
1)Catavino?sRioja Report and EWBC 2008:Gabriella and Ryan over at Catavino have made a labor of love?an ambitious sort of compendium that is all things Rioja.From regional gastronomy to what else? Los vinos!You can find maps, profiles of wineries, beautiful photography and even a comprehensive explanation of Rioja labeling practices.I also found their buying guide particularly valuable and look forward to bringing it along on some shopping trips in the near future.This kind of stuff is a privilege to be able to look at when you consider other ?regional reports? published by people with a sense of entitlement to wine travel and $60+ annual subscription fees.Ryan and Gabriella are accountable for their material, actively and genuinely elicit and value readers? opinions, suggestions and evince passion for this stuff, so go ahead and bookmark them.
3)Remember Mr. Show?s Worthington Law applied to wine?Looks like the research findings from that CalTech/Stanford study published earlier in the year have been further validated.Working Paper No, 16, published by the American Association of Wine Economists details a new study in which people generally preferred less expensive wines, unless told by researchers of course, that a wine was particularly expensive.
4) If you read Spanish and want to stay up on the latest happenings in the Mendoza wine industry, you may want to bookmark El Blog de Vinos de Argentina.I have been reading their blog for some time now and have found it more and more valuable in terms of getting an inside track on what they?re thinking in Mendoza.As an Argentine, I?ve become a bit tired of receiving my Argentine wine industry news solely from the perspective of English-language consumer magazines.In the Argentine wine-sense, I?m approaching the sort of frustration many over here are feeling with news sources like CNN and FOX?it?s unfortunately limited for my needs.I may not be alone in wanting something like this?I really feel that things would get interesting if insiders from many wine regions only generally covered by shiny-cover magazines began communicating their perspectives directly to readers in a couple of other languages.
5) I would like to issue a preliminary warning before checking out this final note...it is cringe-inducing. I caught this on an Argentine website related to wine news. You'll click on the link and notice the article is written in Spanish, but that won't deter you from making the appropriate inference...Madonna will be contracting some local producer to lovingly craft her own label of Malbec. My comments? Oh hell no. Truthfully though, the nausea actually set in when I read that the label will reportedly be named after "Evita." Whether you are a foreigner and think Evita was a great person or an Argentine who may have the courage to speak up and express a more balanced perspective for the legacy of this famous political figure, one thing's for sure, Madonna could have chosen ANY OTHER variety cultivated in ANY OTHER country. Why us, oh God why us?
As we enter the holiday season, I thought it time to up the caliber of my wine recommendations, to put the focus on some truly outstanding wines, which are somewhat costlier than those I have recently recommended. For many, they are special occasion wines, and they can help make those occasions that much more special.
Last January, the UK based wine writer and Committee Member of the Circle of Wine Writers, Christine Austin, suggested that we apply to the organization housed in England. Having had several people offer a similar suggestion for over a year, it seemed ridiculous for us not to get off our hides and do something about it. So, we figured we’d experiment a bit, where I would apply and test the waters, followed by Ryan’s application soon thereafter.
As taken directly from their website:
The Circle of Wine Writers is an association of authors, broadcasters, journalists, photographers and lecturers who are professionally engaged in communicating about wines and spirits. It was founded in 1960 by the late Cyril Ray and now has more than 280 members and, although most of the membership is based in England, the Circle has members in countries around the world.
The objectives of the Circle of Wine Writers are:
* to improve the standard of communication about wines, spirits and beers * to contribute to the growing knowledge and interest in wine * to promote wines and spirits of quality and to comment adversely on faulty products and dubious practices * to establish and maintain good relations with the news media and the wine trade * to provide members with a strong voice with which to express their views * to provide a forum for the exchange of information * to provide a programme of workshops, meetings, talks and tastings
A month has now passed, as seen by the lush green blanket of leaves hanging right outside my office window, and I have just received my very first packet of information including not only a description of the Circle’s turbulent and exciting past, but also their February and March newsletter chalk full of tasting notes, wine trips and commentaries. To be honest, it was a little strange to receive a newsletter consisting of approximately 27 pages of double-sided text stapled together. Repeat: a stapled newsletter. If I didn’t know better, I could have easily mistaken it for one of a dozen reports I handed in during my high school years, complete with a yellow cover printed with their grape and feather quill pen logo.
Funny newsletter aside, I’m truly honored to be apart of this very prestigious organization. While looking down the list of their 280+ members from all over the world, I think I’m one of only a handful of bloggers, while the rest have enough print publications under their belt to fill my office library. It’s a bit daunting to see my name next to, or even near, those of Jancis Robinson, Hugh Jackson and John Radford, but then again, it gives me a goal to work towards I’m sure over years, they’ll teach me a thing or two, or twelve, about wine.
My only other hope is that the Circle will incorporate more social networking tools into their website. With such a vast amount of wine knowledge, I think it would be worth their while to make the members more easily accessible to one another.
Tecnorati
Eric Asimov has a 
Food has been in the news quite a bit recently. Rising prices of corn and rice have sparked unrest in countries in which they are staple foods, and residents of the United States are having to deal with shortages of certain commodities, such as rye. The reduced salmon population in California, Oregon and Washington is expected to push the prices of wild Alaskan salmon to as much as $40 per pound (we'll find out just exactly how much when 
I’m sure over years, they’ll teach me a thing or two, or twelve, about wine.